Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Two months

What's it been?  Less than two months since the grand opening of the beautiful new restrooms located between Wiggly Giggly Park and Bainbridge Park?  Well, the vandals can't seem to let a good deed go unpunished.

The beautiful redwood doors crafted by a local woodworker has been broken and tagged.

and the men's room door has been kicked in and the sign stolen.

A city like all cities.  Two sides.  Love and hate. 
Illegitimi non carborundum

Sunday, August 29, 2010

What do you see?

  1. Looking West down Laurel Street.
  2. Marine layer is in.  Clear over the Pacific.
  3. Ol' 45 is getting ready for it's morning run.
  4. It's smoke is drifting south meaning a breeze from the north.
  5. Must be about 8:00.  Street lights are out but the stores not open.
  6. Yup.  Fort Bragg, Coastal style.

Friday, August 27, 2010

Remember when?

August 2nd, 2006
Pounding the first piling for the V.Starr Community Center and swimming pool!!  Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of the opening of the facility!  
There will be a BIG PARTY.  I hope to see you there!!

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Invasion??

So, here it is two days later and I am walking home from the V. Starr swimming pool and what do I see?  Another Praying Mantis!!!  This one didn't make it and had been flattened by a car.  I'm sure it couldn't be the same one I rescued Tuesday because that one was half a mile from where I found this one!  But then, what do I know.
Weird.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Unusal sighting.

During my early morning walk I spotted this Praying Mantis in the middle of Harold Street by the Middle School.  I have never seen one "in the wild" before.  I picked it up and moved it to the safety of the bushes by the Senior Center where hopefully it will have a longer life.  Unfortunately I didn't have my "good" camera with me and had to "make do" with my cell phone.
Big bug!  The main body must have been over two inches long!
I found this in Wikipedia:

Diet and predatory behavior

Mantises are exclusively predatory. Insects form the primary diet, but larger species have been known to prey on small lizards, frogs, birds, snakes, fish and even rodents; they will prey upon any species small enough to successfully capture and devour. Most species of mantis are known to engage in cannibalism. The majority of mantises are ambush predators, waiting for prey to stray too near. The mantis then lashes out at remarkable speed. Some ground and bark species, however, pursue their prey rather quickly. Prey items are caught and held securely with grasping, spiked forelegs.

Good thing I got it off the street.  Kids walk right by here on their way to school, which has already resumed this year!

Monday, August 23, 2010

I'm walking in sunshine!!

Sunday the sunshine finally won over the coastal Marine Layer.  You can see it off in the distance.  I tell you, it was about time.  The middle of August and in the mid 50's.  I know a lot of folks in the mid west would be happy with 55 degrees about now but.....


Here's that house again only this time with the early morning sunrise shining upon it.


Like a joke, if I have to explain it...., but.  I spotted this homework assignment, love letter, note to someone, whatever, laying in the road on the crossing stripe by the high school.  It was dew soaked, therefore translucent and lit by a sodium vapor street light.  Kind of an interesting photo.


Road kill.  Looks like I photo-shopped the head but I didn't.  Ugly bastard!


And to end on a higher note.  Yellow hot pokers??

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Ho hummm


Not much catching my eye these days during my early morning walk.  But this did.

So there.

Monday, August 16, 2010

Ahem

August 16th, 2010 or December 2nd, 2009 (when this photo was taken) looks about the same at 6:00 in the morning.  Not a whole lot of difference.  What a coolish summer we are having.  The Marine Layer hanging around or covering us every day.  It was a coolish summer in Washington too while I was there.  The whole west coast is having unseasonaly cool weather while the mid states and east coast bake.  I'll take the drizzle.

I finally resumed my morning routine of walking and swimming this morning.  After forty eight days of being away and not walking or swimming..., it felt great, although I took it easy on my re-entry, short walk and only fifteen laps.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

We did it!!!

 

We finished the painting.
It looks great!
We are happy.
Time for me to go home!

Monday, August 9, 2010

That's it!!

We finished the top cowl.

We finished the bottom cowl.

We put it together.  Of course the wings, the landing gear fairings, the wheel pants are not in place but... thar she be!
Today, Monday, I will re-sand the wing that didn't turn out and reshoot it with white and two coats of gloss.  Tuesday morning I should be heading for Fort Bragg.  Thirty six days this project took us.  More time than we expected but the end result is everything we expected.  Perfect!!!

My reward for helping my son Jeff paint his plane above bondo and bonding?  He is going to fly down to Fort Bragg/Ukiah area, pick me up and we are going to fly/camp our way to Oshkosh, Wisconsin for the 2012 AirVenure EAA gathering in this plane!!!
Whoot!  Whoot!

Saturday, August 7, 2010

"Lettuce Spray"

There comes a time when the only way forward is......
do the fuselage.  A much anticipated and worrisome part of the project.

Friday, two coats of white, let dry for an hour and mask off what is to remain white and define the silver stripe..

Saturday, shoot the red and masked it.  Then uncover and shoot the silver stripe.

Off with all the masking tape except for the canopy and then shoot two full coats of clear gloss.

Looking good!

Everyone is happy to finally have this crucial part finished.  Tomorrow we will attach the cowl and rudder and extend the red/white/silver detail onto them and finish them.
We have decided to repaint the rear half of the first wing we painted.
That will pretty much finish this project.  I should be heading back to Fort Bragg this Wednesday.
Jeff has about four months of finish work before he moves it to a hanger where it will finally be completely assembled.

Friday, August 6, 2010

The wheel pants are done!


No runs, no hits, no errors!!

Whoot Whoot!

Jeff took today off work.  The three day weekend marathon begins.
We're gonna paint the fuselage!!!

Cross your fingers!!!

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Pressing on.

I still can't get over how perfect that second wing turned out!!!

Jeff made little caster wheeled dollies to set the main gear on.  Makes it easier to move the fuselage around in the shop.  Here we rolled it out a ways to shoot some primer on it.  The photo gives you and idea of the size of the plane.  This occasion was also the first time the plane has seen the light of day in three and a half years!

For the first time we finally got to shoot some red on the parts that end up being all red, like these landing gear strut fairings.  Nice!

Even the grand kids are starting to smile!!

And now, the wing tips!  That notch you see is where the navigational light and strobe light go.  They will be covered with a clear Plexiglas fairing when done.
This is also our first attempt at our plan for a red and silver stripe.

The white has been shot and masked.  The red has been shot and masked.  Now for the silver.

After the silver was dry to touch all masking was removed and two coats of clear gloss shot over everything.
Perfect!!
The wheel pants are next.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Our dark night of the soul.

We were finally ready to shoot the right wing.  Primed, prepped and ready.

After two coats of base coat white and two coats of clear it didn't look too bad until we got to looking closer.

Orange peel!!
Not everywhere.  In fact some areas were perfect but there was one patch of ugly and of course it had to be on the top side and sort of in the middle of the wing.  Not good.
The wind in our sails was dumped and we entered a phase of wondering if we were really capable of pulling this off.  The wing really was definitely unacceptable.  The bad area is going to have to be sanded down and re-shot but the question is.  Should this old man step aside and Jeff find a real painter? 
Jeff made some calls, found a real painter who would be willing to come out and take a look but not for several days.  So there we were with not a whole lot to say to each other.  Sort of sick.
We decided to go out to the local airport and look at some planes.  We walked around from hanger to hanger and looked at paint jobs.  By golly, we ain't the only one who has had problems.
We returned home and decided to check the spray gun for "starving" and found some paint build-up in the nozzle area.  We "really" cleaned the gun and decided to go ahead and try shooting the second wing with even closer attention to how much paint we were putting on with the thought to lean towards the heavy side rather than the light.  Heavy could mean runs but light definitely means orange peel.

Girding our loins for battle with our minds right we entered the booth and gave it our absolutely best attempt and...

WOW!
We pulled it off!!
We are very pleased.  Confidence has been restored.


Together again!!
Whoot Whoot!